Luke Jessop has turned his attention to a bonus home Emirates FA Cup tie this weekend after being left frustrated after his Hollands & Blair side were held on the opening day by Holmesdale. 

“Thank god for cricket!” the Blair boss exclaimed as because of our summer sport, Blairs scheduled away game in the Extra Preliminary Round at Lingfield has been switched to Gillingham because of a cricket fixture at the Sussex sides ground.

“We are all buzzing for that now and it could not have worked out any better for us. We have done a little bit of homework on them, we are not sure how well they have recruited but we have been given a few bits of information, but we will be one hundred percent focused on what we could learn from the weekend to make sure that we are more ruthless on Saturday.

“It is a massive word that we use in training, before the game, at half time and after the game, we have got to be more ruthless and put teams away.

“Every penny counts and a Cup run would be great, not sure how much we will see of any prize money, but I know for the club its massive! Any FA Cup game is huge, and it will be my first taste of it, and I know that we will prep in the right way for it.” 

Reflecting on the weekend’s 2-2 draw Jessop told us, “We left points on the table on Saturday! I thought we were the more dominant team even when we went one nil down to an unlucky goal, but we had chances to put the game away and we should have done! We went 2-1 up and it should have been 3-1 and 4-1 but same old story we did not put the chances away.” 

“We have tried to recruit well with the right sort of characters, it is not always about ability or names; I have gone for characters this season; the right type of character! We are big on having the “right” dressing room, the right faces with the right sort of people… chemistry I think is the word!” 

“We look balanced on youth and experience for sure and I think we are balanced on characters as well as there’s no point on having too many dominant ones in the dressing room.” 

“We did well at home last season, and we want to carry that on. We want that siege fortress mentality at Star Meadow. I think the Club has that about it anyway in general, but that is the plan and something we speak about – when teams come here, they come for a fight!”